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Ep039: 2026 State of the Union · 775 Alive

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  Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural Nevada headquarters for decoding politics, economics, and general global shenanigans. I'm Crystal Newton, your business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Here with my trusty co-host, Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history, even if we are likely to ignore them. Grab your boots for a wild ride through today's most important news. Hey everyone, welcome back to 775 Alive. Crystal and I have been on the road quite a bit here over the last few weeks with some interviews which will be dropping soon. Uh but we did want to sort of get together and talk about what the big news has been this week, which is of course President Trump's latest State of the Union address. What did you think of it, Crystal? I thought it was awesome. I I was definitely disappointed in the Democratic response, although I feel like a fool for being disappointed. I should have predicted that, but um very heartened by everything that Trump said, but at the same time disheartened that we have such polarization. Um I don't know if you noticed all the sitting by the Democrats and they have good good reasons to sit and in terms of they don't want to vilify illegal immigrants. I I understand that. But the list of things they didn't stand for, uh, the Olympic gold medal winners, getting the World Cup, uh, medal to a World War II veteran, um, the Coast Guard rescue guy, that was story. Um, Delilah, that cute little kid, um, that that recovered from getting hit by um, 401ks up um, $6 billion in Trump accounts from the Michael Dell and his wife. Um, these are all things you'd think that Democrats would applaud for and doesn't quite fall under that category. Um, but that's kind of my summary in a nutshell. How did you how did it hit you? Uh, well, a couple things. One, uh, of course it was the longest State of the Union uh, we've had, something like what 100 or an hour and 47 minutes or something. Very long, although it didn't seem like it. Um, this is something I think that's actually been interesting before we get into the specifics of the address. Um that's been interesting watching Trump here in the second term is is he's given a whole series of speeches that are for lack of a better term untrumpian, right? Um one of the things uh that got commented on in this speech is that, you know, usually if he has these long speeches, he sort of loses the focus about halfway through, right? And there's this long meandering section before he picks it up. That wasn't here. It was topic, address it, move on to the next topic. It was actually a there was still plenty of room for his ad ad uh ad liib moments. I mean, a good example of that was some of the comments he did toss at the Democrats. Um, but for the most part, it was actually a very well structured speech that covered, I thought, a lot of ground. Um, and you know, that was interesting in its own right. And we're sort of breaking ground here with that long speech. Um, what what is the history of the State of the Union address? Do you Yeah, I'm laughing because it's sort of funny and some people might know it. Of course, the constitution article 2 section 3 I think does require the president as they put it from time to time to deliver a report on the state of the union and you know some ideas that the president thinks congress should consider uh going forward. Uh this was a mechanism just to say hey maybe this is going on in foreign policy or this is what I'm seeing in executing the laws that we probably need to work on. Uh and really up from about 1791 all the way up to 1913, that's exactly what it was. It was a written report, right? So the president would do it once a year, usually in December, uh send it over to Congress as a written report and that was the end of it. Woodrow Wilson introduces it in 1913 as an actual physical address. Um, and part of the reason he does that is Wilson is really the first president that sees himself self self-consciously as the presidency not as a separate branch but as the head of a political party that's always represent that's also represented in Congress. Right? Wilson's a big fan of the British parliamentary system where the head of state uh or the the head of government is actually drawn from the majority party in parliament and that's what he tries to replicate. And one of the ways he does this is by presenting himself as the party leader going up here in front of Congress to deliver this address and using you know what Teddy Roosevelt had just developed as the bully pulpit idea to promote his party ideas. Um and then of course later presidents Herbert Hoover is the only one after Wilson who doesn't actually give a physical address after Congress, right? Um and the whole protocol with the president walking in and being introduced by the sergeant-at-arms in the house and whatnot. All that is is very much reminiscent of British parliamentary uh procedure. You know, when the monarch uh comes to opening a house in Parliament, there's a symbolic slamming of the door in her face and all this other stuff. Um but um so presidents got used to doing it. FDR used it for good effect. Uh Lyndon Johnson uses it to announce what becomes the the the great program, his his social spending program. Uh Ford in 75 basically opens his speech with those lines, you know, the State of the Union is not good, talking about all the problems US is facing in the 70s, but it's really Ronald Reagan that turned it into the televised spectacle we think of today. Reagan was really the first to start inviting guests and pointing him out uh and doing this stuff on camera. So it it's it's been an evolving thing that started as just sort of a an annual report and is now sort of evolved into an event. Yeah. I I'm I think it's something that is really important. I really value my citizenship uh citizenship in this country and what this country stands for and you know to take one or two hours out every year to to get an update on how the country is going. It doesn't seem like a big ask, but that did seem to be the the principal complaint from the Democratic side other than vilifying illegal immigrants was that it was too long. And I again puzzled that I mean, how could this be too long? And and especially with your laundry list of complaints about the country. It would seem there's a lot to address and so it would be a long address, you know. Yeah. And and of course the Democrats are no are you know for lack of a better term particular like Bill Clinton was no slouch in this as well. He gave some very long in fact Clinton had the second longest inaugural address. Uh the only inaugural address that was that was longer than Clinton uh in 96 was the uh uh William Henry Harrison who famously catches pneumonia during it and dies 31 days later becoming our so you know speaker be warned but um yeah no I thought I thought it was interesting. Can we, you know, and I know we want to get to the substance, but there is something interesting about that with a lot of the Democrat response. I think part of it was structured that they didn't end up with the speech they were prepared to speak about, right? That they thought this was going to be, you know, it was a long speech, but it wasn't rambling. And that like again, it was very well structured. And I think that actually caught the Democrats a bit off guard. Um, listen to Spanberger and some of the others. Of course, uh, uh, Virginia Governor Spanberger gives the the Democratic response, um, from the the former chambers there in Williamsburg, Virginia. Um, but she, uh, uh, you know, she talks about all this stuff that there was a lack of definition. And I'm sort of like, this was actually one of Trump's more detailed speeches where he gave some numbers, right, and and talks about it. You've already given some of those. Um, and then of course, you know, the next day, you know, Nancy Pelosi, oh, it was a lazy speech. It's like, huh? What are you talking about there? I I did want to ask you what you thought about So earlier this year, we saw Texas Democrats um in their leg the Texas legislature Democrats leave instead of doing their job and now at the the State of the Union address, half of them didn't show up. So what is your feeling on this new Democratic strategy of just not participating? Well, so a couple things on that. I I I personally find the two events totally separate, right? Uh the Texas uh exit from the legislature was really set up as a means to forestall the people's business being conducted. That's problematic, right? Um this I mean the state of union is getting delivered whether you know whatever the 60some members of of the Democratic uh house are there or not. It just it doesn't matter. Um, I have to say I I do want to think give a good shout out to Cortez Masto, our senator from Nevada, who said she understood why they weren't there, but, you know, saw her attendance as being part of her job. So, kudos for her. Of course, she's up for election in 2028. So, she's she's walking a very narrow line here in a in a state that's probably majority Republican or will be by 2028. Um, but still, I don't really think it's that big of a deal. We've had protests before. Uh, of course we also had the designated survivor. Are you familiar with that concept? I forget it was somebody from California, wasn't it? Well, actually there there's a whole series and this is sort of something I'd forgotten about, but um, yeah, like the guy's from California and he's going to be the sole survivor and take over the country. I like, no. Yeah. Well, but what happened? Yeah. So, one of the cabinet members, they always choose a cabinet member and it tends to be a low-level one just in case, you know, Lord forbid something happened during the the the speech. there's a continuity of government because you've got, you know, the speaker of the house, the president, the vice president, everybody in the the immediate chain right there um in this uh but since uh 9/11, one of the things that's happened uh and I think you're seeing a bit more of this um you've had it where it's evolved that not only does one of the cabinet members become the designated survivor, but each of the houses selects sort of a designated speaker of the house, designated uh senate pro president prom who also aren't there. Uh and at various years we've had as many as like five or 10 members of each house voluntarily not be there in case something happens where they can form sort of a rump congress uh if if worse comes to worse. So, you know, not everybody that wasn't there wasn't there simply as a man of protest. I think it looks bad for the Democrats. I think there's going to be a lot of negative ads uh that the the national Republicans are going to be running here over this. Um, and I think in some ways the Democrats might have got hurt pretty bad by some of their actions, but you know, in the grand scheme of things, I think it's relatively minor. Yeah. I I mean, I just, you know, I like to look at the logic of it and, you know, the party's always about democracy, which requires participation, you know. Well, requires participation. And I don't know if it requires listening or acting as a u um acting as as a sort of piece of scenery for a program speech. I mean, this is uh this is this is how a lot of the Democrats have taken it, right? Uh and of course, some of those who didn't take it um you know, Ilian Omar, uh Toledo Rasheed, um you know, they they actually broadcast a much more negative uh aspect, right? Uh Mark Kelly is a more interesting example because he had a very real reason for being there. But um you know some of his actions have have been brought up under scrutiny. But I think in the overall scheme of things I mean the State of the Union's political theater so reactions to it are political theater. Sure. Right. So well let's take another look at let's continue that because you found that thing from the Daily Wire, right? Yeah. Where you're doing the interview. You want to set that up? Yeah. So I well it goes along that same vein of u this the narrative that the Democrats are following it I mean like you were saying with Abigail Abigail Spamberger her Democratic response did not fit it. So it it kind of makes you think that you know they're they're making up their minds before they even hear what Trump has to say. And in that same vein we had um what was her name? Uh Brea Stole from the Daily Wire. She went on George Washington University campus and asked students what they thought of the state of the union address the day before the state. And the responses that she was able to catch were uh criticism across the board before it had happened, right? Yeah. Yeah. Let's play. It's only about 45 seconds. So, college kids are telling us Trump's State of the Union didn't go so well. The only problem it's tomorrow. Rate Trump State of the Union speech 1 out of 10. One's the worst, 10's the best. negatives. And why? I think we all know a lot of reasons. What about the state of the union last night? One to 10. It was like a one or a two. I mean, it was all over the place. Probably just gave me a zero. Going to give it a one. And why do you say one? Um I just I don't think he's very articulate. How did Trump do at the State of the Union? Zero. Uh I'll be real. I didn't watch it. Like Yeah. I didn't really watch it much. I watched for a little bit but turned off. The State of the Union last night, how how was that? 1 to 10. I didn't know it was last night. I thought it was tomorrow. No, you're good. You passed the test. Good job. Yeah. And I I think uh you know, listening to this, it's absolutely funny until we get to the last person who realized, wait a minute, it hasn't happened yet. You know, you have all these people just sort of delivering the these sort of wrote criticisms of Trump's speech, right? Uh in some cases, uh claiming stuff that, you know, oh, it was rambling. he didn't really say anything which of course shows up in in the actual post speech analysis. Um but um yeah, I think it gets into sort of a problem and again as political theater, the opposition party and Republicans are no less subject to this than the Democrats, right? So when Democratic President Biden gives a speech, some of the Republican responses tend to be absolutely abysmal because they don't, you know, they're not actually reacting to the responses. They're sort of guessing what's trying to go on and then, you know, respond. But I think this time it it might actually backfire. I think there's a bit of a jarring distinction between the two. Yeah. And the big question of course is, you know, the Republicans, we we really think that the big takeaway from the um the State of the Union was that we have all these great clips of of showing Democrats sitting and not participating and not putting America first and this is going to be so great for the midterms and my first political instinct was this will be forgotten in two weeks. This will not have any lifespan in the midterms. Is that kind of what you felt or thought? Uh, I think it's going to depend. I think we will see to the midterms, but I I don't think it's going to I mean, this isn't, you know, we got some of this commentary already. Well, they just shot the blue wave in the foot. No, that's not going to happen. Um, because I I think the midterms still are going to be heavily determined by where the country is economically. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, we've got a long way to go. Um, but I think one of the things that Trump did rather successfully, if we set aside the theatrical stuff here at the moment, was actually outline some very not only positive developments as he saw them, right? Uh, some of them are absolutely stunning, uh, the drop in murder rates, right? Um, that's happened uh, here over the last year. Um, there's some controversy over the extent of the investment. You know, the controversy over the gas prices. You know, what we don't see in my state gas prices under $2. Well, that really wasn't what he said, but um you know, it's hard to the it's it's hard to argue the gas prices aren't cheaper now um than they are. And in fact, a day or two after it, it comes out that the US is currently producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined right now. Right. Yeah. Um we're back to this situation of being a dominant oil producer. And that that really is something we haven't seen in the US for decades, right? So, that's fantastic. But the truth is is most blue states have some sort of a gas tax in place that does make it artificially higher. So there's a good chance that the Democratic states, they actually won't see some of those price drops. And it's artificial, you know, right? And and gas prices are always uh always complex. Of course, we have a lot of problems here because if you're in Reno or Vegas, your gas is coming out of California, so you're subject to that. Uh up here in Elco, Humbled sort of Humboldt supply chain comes out of California as well. if I remember up in your neck of the woods, uh, Elkos actually comes out of Salt Lake, so we're separate, but we're at the end of that Salt Lake, right? So, we have weird gas prices anyway. Um, because, you know, they might have bought the gas three three weeks ago that's still in the tank. So, there's a lag um whenever something happens. But, um, but I think a lot of the stuff, and this is, and again, this was where I thought the mismatch was weird, is that for once, Trump actually threw out some numbers. He he threw out his uh maloproisms, the bestest, the greatest, that type of stuff, but he actually threw out some numbers that uh is sort of surprising that the Democrats didn't pick up on. um there. Um but I go ahead some credit because a few months ago he gave a speech at the NRC and the the Nevada Republican Club and he had talked about our dependence on California refineries and putting measures to help us in case in event of failure or some problem that we have alternative sources. So he was putting a plan into action and actually I think in January California shut down a bunch of refineries. So it came right in the nick of time. So I wanted to give credit to Governor Lombardo for thinking that through and for seeing that problem. Right. Well, and it wasn't California shut down the refineries. The refineries are shutting down because they f find California's regulatory environment too difficult to work with and too expensive. Um that that's it might seem like a subtle difference, but it is an important one. It's not like California is specifically doing stuff. Uh, and of course, Governor Lombardo, we probably ought to think about doing an episode on this sometime in the future. He just set up and they just had their first meeting, this Nevada fuel resil resiliency uh committee that's going to be examining what Nevada's fuel u supply chains look like, right? So, that that is something that's just popped up in the last month. I was just uh recently talking with Berg Gurr, who's my assemblyman about this uh at an event up here in Elco. Um, so that might be something we want to take a look at. Can can we talk a little bit about what this might mean for rurals cuz there were there were a couple things I thought that was really interesting directly towards rural audiences that were sort of surprising, right? Um, the first being, you know, you and I have talked quite a bit about uh artificial intelligence, AI, and data centers. And he announced his program. Of course, he has been the Trump administration going all the way back to last summer has been putting these structures into place uh to uh boost American AI to to sort of create regulations to sort of bring AI data centers online, but then he announces he's going to he's going to force them to provide their own power supplies, right? Um what do you think about that? It was brilliant and I I love that you brought this up because it is it's something that I've been very concerned about. Anytime you have a new industry come on board, it starts taking up resources that have already been obligated elsewhere. In this case, the energy supply, so heating your home is a big deal. Cooling your home is a big deal. And if these AI data centers start taking electricity out of the grid, what happens? All of our prices go up. And that's one of your fundamental commodities that people cannot afford to be fiddled with. So I was super excited. It was either, you know, mandate that they provide their own electricity or create a tiered system where, you know, over a certain usage you pay more or a higher rate. Um, and that's that can be a little wy to try to implement. But this was brilliant. It may build your own power. That's awesome. And that's going to save a lot of people, right? And I was interested because he he pitches it as a as a rate payer protection thing, right? That this is really about of course affordability is going to be a big issue and that's why so much of this midterm in my opinion is going to depend on how the economy is doing. Um but this has been interesting that a it was pitched as a way of protecting people's potential energy prices. Um now it doesn't do anything about water which is the other side of the AI but I think it's an important step forward particularly um you know we talked about this briefly uh a little while back when we interviewed Adrien Marsh right who was very interested in the AI issue in rurals although the data center issue and her research didn't really show up that strongly but we've seen over the week since the state of the union and even before a number of big community meetings that made the national news where people are really upset about these data centers right uh and it's predominantly rural areas is um I don't know when's the last time you've been to Denver or Okay, so one of the things that always struck me about Denver that I'm really worried about here is happening in Nevada is if you head east from Denver down uh down out of the Rockies into the plains there in Nebraska and Kansas. Um you see those giant wind farms and those giant wind farms are set up here in these rural counties in in extreme western Nebraska and Kansas, but all the power is flowing across the border into Colorado um and into uh Denver. So, in a weird way, it's it's a form of extractive energy. And that's what's going on in large parts of rural Nevada right now, right? We're going to set up these massive solar farms, but the power is going to be sold to other states, right? We're going to set up a massive wind farm and all the power is going to Vegas. Oh, and uh sorry, you're just going to have to deal with the brown outs cuz you don't have enough power locally. Um, and I think a lot of people are justifiably worried AI is just going to accelerate that process where where oddly these natural energy sources start becoming another form of extractive industry for the rurals. Um, so it's sort of interesting to see that mentioned. Yeah. Mhm. Um, the other thing I thought that was interesting and I'm not sure how I feel about this. Um but but he mentioned this idea that one of the things he's going to explore this year is uh opening up the what's known as the thrift savings plan that the that's one of the options for retirement under the federal government. Uh the people that don't have access to pensions or 401ks through their employers, right? Um and I thought that was interesting. I actually do have a small thrift federal thrift savings plan account from when I worked with the Census Bureau, right? I knew it was a temporary thing. So I I didn't go to one of the big plans cuz it just didn't matter. Um, but it's actually produced fairly good uh fairly good returns here recently, which has been surprising. But what's more interesting about that to me is this is uh this is another issue that I think there's some deeper wheels turning. Of course, we've been concerned about social security. Never been it was never intended to be the sole support in old age, right? It's a safety net. Um, but what this indicates to me is that Trump administration is somebody in there is looking very very deeply at at some of these big financial issues we're going to have going up because the baby boomers are going to go away. That's going to decrease pay into social security. Um, this thrift savings plan I got thinking, man, that that has some real possibilities. Now, it's not fleshed out yet, right? But it is sort of a different take here, I think, on how you fund these public services. Yeah. Um, Trump has a an interesting strategy I've seen play out in a few different arenas now. And to me, the the retirement accounts and the the Trump the kid accounts. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The Trump accounts. Yeah. If you think about it, it in some ways that is putting money into the stock market for a long-term amount of time. And that actually can help stabilize the stock market in a lot of ways. Cuz right now, well, I'd say the last 20 years, we've had a lot of bot trading and high volume rapid trading that can really make people lose an entire lifetime's worth of savings overnight and it can get very volatile. So, I almost see these programs aside from their obvious benefits as a way to stabilize the stock market, but also I've seen him do this with the Middle East. So, Palestine has always been very volatile and we can't seem to figure out how to stabilize that region. So what he did was go and get a bunch of Middle Eastern countries to invest in the rebuilding that partners have an interest in keeping and maintaining peace for their investments. So you can kind of see there's like a couple layers like you were saying there's some deeper wheels turning but they're very stabilizing measures in my view. Well, and and you know, I I wasn't really thinking about going into the the deep finances because like I said, I haven't done it, but but two things on this because you did talk a bit about Trump accounts, which is something I'm sort of I don't want to say I'm skeptical, right? Uh because I was a generation, you know, when I'm born, my parents went out and bought bonds and that type of stuff, uh because that was heavily pushed at the time. But one of the things that always struck me is oh this was in the aftermath of the 2008 uh financial crisis. So 2012 2013 somewhere uh uh a French economist by the name of uh Tommo speaking um puts out this book called capital. But one of his ideas is um really this idea that what societies ought to do is set aside some of that capital that their society generates. The government should set it aside for each citizen, right? it becomes available to them as an adult, which is not much different than what the Trump administration's sort of talking about at the core of these these savings accounts. Um, but on the threat savings plan, I'd go one step further because one of the things I think we've seen, and you're the business person, so you might have better insight into this, but you know, one of the things that's been creaking around the outside is com is other countries sort of dropping Treasury bonds, right? Uh for for whatever reason. Um, and a lot of it in my mind's political. I don't think they're they're not going to dump enough or they're going to hurt themselves economically. Um this is just sort of a typical protest that we've seen. But imagine these Yeah. Um but imagine if these thrift savings accounts if people start putting money into that and it and you know, one of the things they could potentially do is buy up these bonds that are being sold elsewhere. So you have you have the the the people buying the bonds actually being the American citizens. They're buying their own bonds, right? these tea bills and whatnot through this. Um, and that's an interesting prospect that gets back exactly what you say. This might be an interesting way to fund some long-term growth, uh, while helping some of the some of the social security. I mean, because imagine if these take off, that could potentially reduce the stress on social security. Yeah. The bond market is our foundational market. It's the market that everything else sits on. And I've always been really leery that international other entities are invested in it and they could pull their funds at any time which you know would affect our credit rating which would affect the value of our dollar and on and on it goes. It's one of the most critical things and it's a brilliant suggestion that Americans should be buying our own bonds especially as they become available for these countries that are trying to make a point by selling bonds. That's fine. We'll buy them. Thanks. Yeah. Um so there's there was a lot of interesting stuff. Like I said I think it was a much richer speech. uh than a lot of people a thought would have been possible but even now I don't think we've fully thought through the ramifications right interesting I this isn't exactly related to the speech but we do have you know the mention of Iran we have the mention of Maduro's extraction um we we're in quite a lot of international kurfles um but all of a sudden we have a very serious issue with Cuba and I I don't know how that gets mixed in with all the international policies, but I I don't know if you took note of that, but Cubans shot for Americans, right? Well, and I think you're Yeah. And you know, Cuba is one of these things um that I think because it it pretty much is the last old style Soviet regime left. Um outside of North Korea, and North Korea at this point, I'd argue, is its own it its own entity. Um, no. I think I think the Trump administration already assigned a death nail for Cuba. We're we're just watching death throws. Um, and the reason is, again, going back to these oil tanker seizures, again, Trump doesn't really speak about this in the State of the Union. Um, but I but I think one of the reasons you haven't seen the massive international outrage against those oil tanker seizures is that that's actually a UN policy that's been in place for decades. And you know, lo and behold, Trump enforced it and what are they gonna say, right? Oh, we didn't really mean it. I mean, it's it's, you know, um it's actually a big thing. Um I think um Iran is Go ahead. Thought there should have I I don't know. I'm on the the fence on this because I don't think that Trump in the State of the Union. I think he should have said more because all these things are connected and um you know between Iran ratcheting up the rhetoric and I China's shipping C130s over to Iran. We have Russia refusing to settle with Ukraine and we just took Maduro out of Venezuela and then Cuba shoots some people. I It feels like we're going to war. Um much there that you I don't know what did what do you think? Well, I actually think there was actually a lot of um sort of some interesting international stuff. Of course, Maduro's extraction. Uh you had the helicopter pilot that was given the Congressional Medal of Honor, right? That stunning scene of him there in a walker from the injuries sustained. Uh you had the the uncle who had been freed, an opponent of Maduro had been freed from Venezuela that they flew in. I actually think probably the most heartwarming part of the night and honestly the the one part I think there's no question the Democrats stood up and supported and I I mentioned Mark Kelly in passing the uh from uh from Arizona but I know he played a role I think in the Senate getting his pass was that 100-year-old uh veteran Royce Williams Captain Royce Williams getting the Congressional Medal of Honor. I think that's actually a little bit more important for anybody that's deeply into this. Uh, and the reason is you mentioned him as a World War II veteran, which he was, but what he wins that Congressional Medal of Honor for, is actions that happened in 1952 during the Korean War. Uh, and I was looking at it afterwards cuz it's it's fascinating. Um, that aerial combat he was engaged in what was still apparently remains the longest single aerial combat ever fought by US naval aviation in history, right? Nobody knew about it. And nobody knew about it because who they were actually fighting uh was Soviet fighters out of Vladivto. They weren't fighting North Korean or Chinese fighters. They were fighting Soviet fighters. Uh and it was covered up because the Soviet Union technically was not a combatant in the Korean War. And the Eisenhower administration didn't want this blowing up into a general war when it comes out that American and Soviet fighters have gone at each other. Right. Yeah. So it's covered up for decades and has been released since the end of the Cold War. I think that actually says a lot about Trump's thinking here. And I think that was a very clear message where Trump's saying, "Look, you know, we're not looking for allout war, right? That's not what we're going to that's not what we're going to do." Um, but we're going to recognize the fact that, you know, just like you're saying, you're not operating against the US. The Soviet Union said they weren't operating in Korea, and you know, here's this combat veteran that we're going to recognize for it. I think that was actually a rather subtle hint to the political leadership in China uh and Russia and Iran that uh the Trump administration is taking some of these foreign relations issues much more seriously um and are willing to use military force if if that's what's required. Right? I don't think it's a general war. And I think part of that messaging was we're not going to you know we're not looking for war but you know you tussle with us, we're going to tussle back and it's not going to go well for you. Um, yeah. The other interesting thing about Iran, you're right, Iran didn't didn't get a lot of speeches, a lot of part of the speech, right? Some stuff about the ongoing nuclear weapons, but earlier that day, there was an intelligence briefing for Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, uh, you know, sort of the Democratic leaders there in the in the Senate. Um, and the video footage of them walking out of that brief that briefing, they're like ashenfaced. And both of them said almost the same thing. Trump's going to have to going to have to explain this to the American people. You know, that raised some eyebrows cuz what it looks like is they walked into what they thought was a briefing and really discovered something serious is going on, right? And um really serious. Not not in the sense that they think Trump's doing anything insane. I think they realize there's a real problem he's trying to address. Now, what that is, nothing was said in the speech, and a lot of people thought it was going to be part of the speech. Uh but then again, we've we've had in the day or so after the speech, we had talks with Iran. So whatever is going on is big, right? And I think the Democrats recognize very prominently that this isn't Trump sort of flying off the handle. So you know Yeah. So I politically what does that mean? If we if we go to war before the elections, what what do you think that would mean for the midterm elections? Oh, it'd be chaos. Um, Americans have tended to support presidents in war, not to change horses in the middle of stream, but that's not a that's not a definite, right? Certainly that happened with Vietnam, right, where we go from the Johnson administration, Democratic administration to Nixon. Um, again, I don't actually don't think it's it it's I don't think it's war. I think um I think there is something that is very seriously my my my suspicion is one of two things. It's either one there is some sort of coup brewing in Iran and those American military forces are there basically to be there in case this coup happens and that government falls to contain it. Right? So again that's not the US engaging in a war. Right? But it can it will fundamentally alter the shape of the Middle Eastern politics. The other possibility is that there is some faction, and let me highlight that, that there's some faction in the Iranian government that's still pursuing nuclear weapons. And I I think this is a direct threat to the Iranian government, the faction who's not pursuing it. Say, you need to stop this or, you know, we're we're going to take out this program once and for all, which was the part of the State of the Union speech he did mention was there, the nuclear program, and they weren't going to allow it, which of course has been American policy for 25 years now. But well, and he would really have to tiptoe around it because when we're talking about Iran, we're also talking about China. I don't think China's going to go to war to save Iran's nuclear program. I don't think so either, but I certainly think they will support them in any way that they need support. Um, but to get back to the State of the Union address, um, so I I noticed a lot of the international stuff missing, but I think I I think it was good because I Trump really fashioned this speech to it almost seems like the entire speech, yes, it was to update everybody on everything he's done, but also it was completely engineered to get the commercials they need for the midterms from the Democrats. And so if you look at it from that lens, you can see how the international stuff got kind of minimized. and some more things would got minimized that would be tougher subjects to talk about in the midterms. So, I felt like I think I actually agree with what he did. I think if he had laid it out like a traditional CEO, the Democrats would have a lot more to pick on, but I think he fashioned it in a way to where he's like, "Anything you have to say about any of this is going to make you look bad." Well, I think there was part of that. Um, so just to pick apart what you said, I mean, not negatively, but as you usually do, there's a lot there. Um, So, number one, I think everybody expected this to be a domestic focused. I mean, the truth is midterm elections tend to be much more domestically focused and and the Democrats have been very open about the affordability issue being a centerpiece of their argument. Uh, I mean, you know, uh, Aaron Ford, who's our attorney general, um, running for governor against Lombardo here in Nevada, that's all he talks about is affordability on the campaign trail, right? Because they think that the Democrats think that's a selling point. A lot of people are worried about it. So, it's not surprising me the Trump administration spent a lot of time like the Republican leadership had asked him to do to address these affordability issues, right? Yeah. That that this stuff is getting better, that these are long-term processes. Um, you know, I was just explaining this. I just did an interview with Kunr's radio program uh one of their radio programs here uh just last week and that was one of my points and and Dave Flippo another one of our guests has made it and some others that look you know any type of economic policy it's 8 to 12 months before you really seeing the effect and a lot of Trump's economic policies really weren't put into place to last May through last summer. Um so if they work we'll know in the next couple months. So I I think that's what this was. Um, I do think one thing he played it well. Trump's always tends to be sort of upbeat if he's not complaining, right? Um, but this was a very upbeat speech, right? Even some of his jabs, I think, at the opposition were were sort of more light-hearted that you can pass over, right? Weren't really mean-spirited, although some people are going to take it that way. But it really was, I thought, a very upbeat speech, right? Even more upbeat than last year's State of the Union. Yeah. And I I really I the Republican side I think we're we're missing where the Democrats see the real Achilles tendon uh which is the affordability issue because from their perspective we had all this inflation from Biden and the last thing we want or can get to is a deflationary spiral. And so what people are actually asking for lower prices is is probably the worst thing that could happen to them. And so really the best strategy is like yes, we've incurred all this inflation, but going forward we're going to try to minimize the rise going forward and you don't want to start going downhill. So from the Democratic strategy standpoint, they know things are going to continue to be unaffordable. And the other thing that's going on is even though we have a huge economic boost that the stock market's roaring, uh most of consumer spending is done by the richest in the country. And so we have this divide that's starting to occur where the richest people are getting phenomenally rich and then they have the rest middle income or lower is not seeing the effects and they're not keeping up with inflation. Not Trump's fault, but the Democrats know that come midterms they're going to be feeling it. Even if things improve, manufacturing starts, all of it goes, we're never gonna get cheaper. So yeah, that that is a a viable way forward for Democrats, even though they can't deliver on anything, you know. Well, I think I think I'm I'm actually going to disagree a bit and put out there we probably need to have Garland Brinkley back. Um, you want to be bored of him and I discussing economics. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Deflation would be one of the worst things that would happen. Uh, we're not going back to to 2016 prices on anything, right? That said, I think a lot of the increase in prices weren't a lot of it was spurred, I think, by the combination of the the tons of money dump dumped into the economy with the COVID and then the uh you know uh recovery act, right? Yeah. Um and and that's disappearing. Um but some of the other prices, which you're right, aren't going to aren't necessarily Trump's problem. So, one issue of that egg prices. I mean, egg prices are pretty much almost back to where they were uh 2022, 2023. And so much of that was caused by the USDA's reaction to that Asian bird flu and slaughtering whole stocks. And then you had, you know, places like Nevada where you had restrictions on what types of eggs you could use. And the only types of eggs they wanted to sell in Nevada were exactly the ones that they're exterminating the flocks for, right? Uh because of the Asian bird flu. So, we had that weird thing that got passed, first bill that gets p or second bill that gets passed out of the Nevada legislatores, you know, suspending the the the cage-free egg thing. Um, but, um, and beef prices, I think, are following that, too. It's still very expensive, but so much of that was this this uh uh the diseases in the beef herds. Um, some of the other things I think are going to be rough, but I think what you're going to see is it's you're not going to see deflation. I think you are going to get prices. I if eggs are say $2.50 a dozen, right? Um I just bought a dozen for $29 a day, but let's say 250 cents a dozen, that might be 50 cents more expensive than it was 10 years ago. But one of the things we're seeing is we are seeing wages tip up. So somebody that's now making 75 cents more an hour and those eggs go down to two $2.50 an hour, yeah, it looks more expensive, but in reality they're still 25 cents ahead. Right. Right. So, I think that that's the type of dynamic I think we're caught into. And it really is just a racing game. Yeah. And it's it's an ignorance game, too. But Democrats know that most people are not that great at math and don't understand inflation. So, all they have to say is the prices are terrible and that's it for people, you know. So, I I really do think it's an Achilles tenant for us Republicans to try to overcome. Well, I think it's a better approach than uh because one of the things that gets me about this and again I don't want to go into economics, but you know the Obama administration was faced with exactly the same problem after the 2008 financial crisis, right? And if you remember Obama administration's response to that was this concept of the new normal, right? Basically just get used to higher prices. That's just how it is now, right? And part of the success of the first Trump administration, at least up to COVID, was showing that wasn't the case. And I think that's more of the big picture issue we're seeing now is that, you know, are these problems we're facing, are they just normal part of the world or are there definite decisions, right? Uh a good example of this is one of the stories that got muted out of the state of the union, but the fentanyl death's dropping, right? I mean, we've been talking now for five or six years, fentanyl, it's it's the result of depression in rural America and there's all these things and we're not going to be able to really solve it. and Trump comes in and shuts down the borders and and the fentanyl overdoses are collapsing. They're disappearing, right? Lo and behold, you shut off the supply of drug, it tends to be a very effective way to keep people from overdosing on it. Um, that's a big picture discussion I think that we're really stuck in the Republicans and the Democrats over, you know, is is it we just have to accept what's going on or can we actively change it? And that's a debate that Yeah. is probably going to play out over the midterm. Yeah. And u Mexico is interesting because that Mexico I mean the the fentanyl deaths you're right were mentioned but I don't think Trump will ever get credit or maybe not in the the near term but Mexico has failed to do anything about its cartels for about 20 years just kind of let them run rampant. And uh my guess I really think that Trump had a discussion with Claudia Shinbomb and said you got to pick you got to you got to take out one of these cartels. and the Mexican government is pretty entwined with some of the cartels. So, he's definitely pushed them to do something about the cartels in Mexico, which again contributes to the fentanyl deaths. But, I don't think that he's ever going to be able to mention it because it's just one of those things where Mexico can't really air these things out in public. It's just it's their own little way of doing things down there. Um, but I think I think Trump's been pushing Mexico very hard to get get control over these cartels. And of course, El Mo was was taken off the streets, which is fantastic. Well, I I think you're right. Except I don't I don't I don't think it's actually that sort of sketchy. I I I think, you know, Trump has threatened on numerous occasions to send US troops into Mexico to solve these cartel things. And, you know, I think that left the Mexican government with a very Yeah. uneasy thing either. We let the US come in and take care of this. And remember, this is not the first time the US has run into problems with Mexico like this, right? The 1916 Mexican expedition expedition against Ponchovilla started exactly the same way when Ponchovia's revolutionaries come across the US border and attack a town in was Columbus, New Mexico, right? Um but um yeah, I think that's what it is. Um I think another thing that's interesting is one of the things that's already coming out, we're back to 2010 and Eric Holder and the fact that all these cartel weapons are coming out of the US, right? and the and the Democrats basically arguing, well, this is because, you know, some somehow some two-bit gun shop in in southern Arizona is selling military grade weapons to these cartels, which isn't the case, right? Uh they're right. They are US-made weapons. What they seem to be is a lot of US cold war era stockpiles that were given to the Mexican government. Then the Mexican corrupt officials in Mexico released to the cartels. Right? So there's another reckoning that the US is deeply involved but not directly in some of that violence that's going on down there. Yeah. And I' I've heard that too and I do think it's unfair because it's definitely a thing that Russia and China are sending weapons to Mexico too. They don't have VIN numbers or identification numbers. So the only people that actually put identifiers on their guns are the US because we're transparent. But it's Yeah. So they can say, "Oh, it's all US guns." But it's like, no, there's a lot of guns here without uh ident serial numbers on them. They came from somewhere else. So, yeah. And that's shown up again in report after report after report the ATF and others have done looking into this. So, um always been my complaint. Anyone that criticizes the gun industry in the United States, I'm like, we're super transparent with our crime rates and everything else, so you can see it, but you know, the rest of the country is not great reporting, so it's not fair to ever compare it, I think. No, it's not. But it does factor into some of the some of the discussions I think that went on. So, um, you know, like I said, I thought it was a very interesting State of the Union. That's one of the reasons you and I wanted to sort of, for lack of a better term, get it off our chest here, why it's still fresh. Um, but, uh, I think I think the Trump administration was successful in sort of shifting uh, very importantly, some narratives about the midterms, and we're going to have to see how that's playing out here over the next uh, over the next few months. Yeah, definitely. And I I I love everything that Trump's done. I worry about how much of it's going to stick and outlast his administration. I think it's we're on the right track, but these things are so hard to keep nailed down. I mean, if we lose the House at the end of this year, what's going to stick, right? Well, it's going to be chaos in my mind. Um I I think they'll be just going after Trump and not really doing anything, which is the worst thing they could be doing. But um well anyway, if you have any questions, want to get in on the conversation, uh go ahead and shoot us an email at info@775alive.com. Uh but until next time, I'm Scott Gavorsky. I'm Crystal Newton, and we'll see you around the 775.